Conventional print service facilities comprise one or a plurality of printers in a single physical location, e.g. a print shop or print room, which provide to a customer a printing service for posters, brochures, leaflets, copies of photographs and the like. Typically, a print service facility may comprise one or more large format printers capable of printing to large format size media, for example a HP DesignJet printer, and may comprise one or a plurality of smaller format printers, for example HP laser jet printers for printing smaller format sizes, e.g. A4 or similar.
Such printers may print images supplied by a customer on data carrier, for example CD ROM, floppy disk or the like. It is known for a print service provider to provide direct to a customer an internet enabled driver for installation on a customer's own computer which is capable of sending customer generated images from the customer's computer to a computer at the print facility. Such systems are limited to single print companies providing proprietary internet enabled drivers to their customers, for using the facilities of the print service provider only.
Mediaflex.com (http://www.mediaflex.com) offer an internet accessible printing service using a standard web browser interface. This service is of the type provided by a single print service provider directly to their customers.
Internet content retailer Barnes and Noble, offers posters for sale, which are supplied by print service provider Buynlarge, who provide a centralized printing facility in a single location. However, this service only supports limited print sizes.
Other companies having an Internet presence include Impress, and Colleria, both of which act as on-line intermediaries for brokerage of print jobs, to match on-line print service buyers with print service providers. However, this service is not fully automated and it is left for the buyers to contact the print service providers direct for transfer of image content, and for invoicing purposes.
Similarly, the on-line company Iprint, provides an on-line service over the internet for customizing business cards, promotional material and the like. However, this service does not provide a fully automated printing service for on-line customers.
The known Mimeo service provides centralized printing, but is restricted to serving US customers only, and provides small format prints, supporting only a single paper size.
Prior art on-line print service solutions are restricted to a small number of individual print service providers offering on-line image transfer facilities to their customers, and without choice of print service provider.